FRESH AIR: Sometime Around Midnight, The Airborne Toxic Event

I thought I was listening to some U2 Brian Eno-laced riffs spun by The Edge. Add in that voice from the sound at my local wings place, and for a while I thought it was Bono.

But this isn't U2.

It's The Airborne Toxic Event and to me, it's like listening to a breath of fresh air. Soothing. All those mystic riffs U2 used to give us. That emotion. The mystery. The dreaminess. This song, Sometime Around Midnight has all of that. And needless to say, this is another song that's a couple of years old that I'm just now discovering. It's hell being old, or having been married so I wasn't listening for this kind of thing.

he Airborne Toxic Event – Sometime Around Midnight Lyrics
And it starts, sometime around midnight.
Or at least that’s when you lose yourself
for a minute or two.
As you stand, under the bar lights.
And the band plays some song
about forgetting yourself for a while.And the piano’s this melancholy soundtrack to her smile.
And that white dress she’s wearing
you haven’t seen her for a while.

But you know, that she’s watching.
She’s laughing, she’s turning.
She’s holding her tonic like a cross*.
The room’s suddenly spinning.
She walks up and asks how you are.
So you can smell her perfume.
You can see her lying naked in your arms.

And so there’s a change, in your emotions.
And all these memories come rushing
like feral waves to your mind.
Of the curl of your bodies,
like two perfect circles entwined.
And you feel hopeless and homeless
and lost in the haze of the wine.

Then she leaves, with someone you don’t know.
But she makes sure you saw her.
She looks right at you and bolts.
As she walks out the door,
your blood boiling
your stomach in ropes.
Oh and when your friends say,
“What is it? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

Then you walk, under the streetlights.
And you’re too drunk to notice,
that everyone is staring at you.
You just don’t care what you look like,
the world is falling around you.

You just have to see her.
You just have to see her.
You just have to see her.
You just have to see her.
You just have to see her.
You know that she’ll break you in two.

* The correct lyric is indeed “cross”. See here
for the explanation from Mikel (lead singer/guitarist).

Donny Claxton

I am a fiction writer with three completed first drafts. I am a filmmaker and photographer. A Christ follower, I've served as a spokesman to two former Alabama governors and three former Dallas schools superintendents. I have three college-aged daughters, and enrolled in SMU's Writer's Path program in 2014. I'm also an Auburn fan.